Ashie is limping

[Orlaith]

My poor poor baby boy Acheron is limping!

He was fine last night; we cleaned all the cages and dosed them with ivermectin (lice problem) and all the piggies were happy and popcorning.

This morning I was playing the sock game with Acheron (I sit on the bed beside the cage and hold a sock up for him to try to bite it - don't worry, I don't let him eat thread or anything!) and I noticed that he was holding one paw off the ground (front left) and wouldn't go that direction to get the sock. So I watched him for a while and he's got a little limp, he's trying not to put any weight on it at all. I took him out to have a look and I can't see any injury or inflammation on his paw pad so I'm bringing him to the vet this evening.

He's still in good spirits and eating his hay, pellets and veggies, so I hope he's going to be okay!

[abby]

Hi Orlaith, try not to worry i had exactly the same thing with Parsley once and rushed him to the vet. They couldn't find anything wrong and assumed he'd just sprained it or pulled it when getting in or out of the hutch or whatever. He was back to normal within a couple of days. It's worth checking he hasn't got a garss seed stuck in his foot pad of course but it's probably just a sprain too and will heal by itself. Poor little Monkey!

[Orlaith]

Yeah, I was in two minds as to whether I should bring him or not because I figured that he'd have to heal on his own anyway, but I rang and asked what they thought and they said to bring him in just in case. Fingers crossed!

[Orlaith]

Ashie has a badly sprained shoulder On a scale of 1-10 (1 being fine and 10 being unable to put any weight on it at all) he's a 7 or 8. He got some metacam for the pain and if he's still limping in 7-10 days he has to go back for an x-ray but our vet is confident it's not broken. So fingers crossed my little man gets well soon!

[abby]

OMG that sounds really bad! Poor little mite, no idea how he did it either i suppose? Give him a kiss from me!

[Orlaith]

Yeah, oh it was awful watching Eamonn move his leg around to see where the pain was and hearing his little squeaks going "Owww!" I nearly cried myself!

The only thing I can think of Abby is that he got is leg stuck in their hay ball. They have the knack of opening it and sometimes they use the door if it to turn it around. I've had a look around the cage and unless he somehow jumped out of the hay box wrong I can't see any other way he could have done it.

It was really heartwarming in a way, when Eamonn left to get the metacam Ashie came running over to me (on his limp!) to hide. Aw!

[Dawn - Admin]

Awww.. poor Acheron, hope it heals very soon Orlaith.

[Orlaith]

Just an update on Acheron, he's still limping quite a bit but he seems to be putting a bit more weight on his bad leg now so fingers crossed it's on the mend now.